by Sara Holland
“You’re not Fiorden,” he says, switching seamlessly to English. “Solarian?”
I shake my head.
He cocks his. “Byrnisian?” His eyes flick along my face, checking for scales, maybe.
At last, I find my voice. “I’m human,” I croak out. “Nate …”
My brother goes still. Still as me. For maybe fifteen seconds that seem to last a lifetime, we stand still and stare at each other.
Then Nate breaks the stillness to step back and pass a hand over his eyes, like he’s making sure they still work. He blinks, his eyes welling up with tears. “Maddie?”
His tears call mine to the surface. I nod, trying to blink them back. “Yeah.”
“Yeah?” It comes out almost like a soft laugh, incredulous. It’s been ten years, and this is what you say?
“How is it you’re here? What are you doing?”
I blink some more, trying to master the scattered storm of my thoughts. Forget Myr, all the words I know in English have flown out of my head. “I … I have phoenix flame.”
Questions, things I want to say fight in my throat to be first out my lips. “You’re a Solarian.”
Nate blinks, taken aback. “Yes.”
He looks down at himself, as if double-checking, and I look too. He’s changed so much. He’s way taller than me, and lanky; his skin is pallid, made paler by the startling contrast of his dark hair. Way different from me, with my compact build, sort-of-tan skin, and brown hair.
Duh. We’re not related by blood. But the difference still startles me. More, he’s transformed from the little boy I knew, with the quick smile and mischievous eyes. There are still hints of that, but I get the feeling that Nate has seen some shit this past decade. There are bags under his eyes, a hard set to his mouth that looks like it doesn’t smile often.
Ever since Taya floated the possibility that he could be alive, the fear had snuck in the back of my mind that if he was alive, we’d find him crumpled in some trader’s basement, chained up and stripped of his soul. But he’s here. Now. He looks good. He looks strong, and most of all, he’s alive.
“I …” Nate speaks, swallows, and presses the heels of his hands against his eyes. He starts again. “It’s not safe here.”
He looks around Cadius’s office, and I wonder why he’s here, but that’s too complex a thought to put into words right now.
Nate moves to the door and puts a slender hand on the doorknob. Then he looks back at me, his eyes wide, like he can’t believe this is real. “Come with me?”
Anywhere, I want to say, but my voice has flickered out again. He gives me one more short, disbelieving look before leading me out into the hallway.
The trip seems to take forever and no time at all. We pass people in the hall, Fiordens, but I don’t really see them except as shapes, passing ghosts. I don’t dare take my eyes off Nate’s back as he walks in front of me; I have to remind myself to blink. Part of me is convinced that he’s a dream, a hallucination, a wish, and as soon as I let him out of my sight he’ll dissipate like a wisp of smoke. A dream or a delusion.
But he doesn’t dissipate. He lets himself into a room in a quiet hallway, shutting the door behind us. I find myself in a bedroom, luxuriously appointed with Winterkill’s same gaudy touches as on the first floor, but lacking any personal effects except for the mess.
Nate’s bedroom is just as messy as I remember his childhood room being. Except now instead of Hot Wheels and Tinkertoys, Lincoln Logs and LEGOs, it’s a tornado of clothes, a green leather satchel lying open on the bed after apparently having exploded all over the room. Nate mumbles some apology and sweeps an arm over a stuffed chair, catching the clothes piled onto it and flinging them into a corner.
Then he sits on the bed, not bothering to move the clothes. He just sits on top of them and props his elbows on his knees. My brother stares at me as I sit down, like he still isn’t sure if I’m real. I know the feeling. There’s so much to say—too much.
It’s paralyzing; it stops me from saying anything at all except for “Nate …”
He clears his throat. “I, uh. I go by Nahteran now, mostly.”
I fall quiet for a moment, considering this. “Nahteran.”
I expect it to hurt, using this new name—no, his first name. But it actually doesn’t. It suits him better, this older, haunted version of my brother.
“What are you doing here?” he asks me. “And how are you here?”
“It’s a long story.” I grin weakly. “But I’m here because of the soul trade. Uh, you know about the soul trade, right? Obviously.”
Nate’s—Nahteran’s—face darkens. He nods, and my chest tightens. Suddenly I don’t want to know what it is exactly that he knows, so I plow ahead.
“I came here to save the captured Solarians. And I’m not alone. Graylin is here, and my … friend Brekken.”
Now that the words are finally coming, I can’t shut them off.
Nate smiles slightly. “I remember Graylin. But Winterkill is a fortress, Maddie. You’ll need more than a few reinforcements to get to the Solarians.”
“How do you know?” I almost trip over my words. I look around the room, realizing for the first time the strangeness of it, how it looks like he’s been here at least a few days. “What are you doing here anyway? You’re not a captive anymore, are you?”
“No,” Nahteran says, and it seems like the temperature in the room drops a few degrees. “Never again.”
I wait, not sure what to say. I’m still so happy to see him, but nothing about him being here adds up. Something on this chair is poking me in the butt. I shift in my seat and pull a stray clothing item out from under me that Nate didn’t catch earlier. I’m about to toss it on the pile with the others when I realize it’s a Byrnisian jacket, similar to the one I love wearing to Havenfall’s evening balls, only in a men’s cut. The scales were poking me.
Looking around, I’m confused to see a mix of clothing from three out of four Adjacent Realms on my brother’s furniture. I hadn’t noticed before, but there are T-shirts and jeans lying around amidst the traditional Fiorden clothes. And even Byrnisian silk, robes, and jumpsuits in the bright colors they favor in that hot, volatile world. I turn the jacket idly over and freeze. There’s something embroidered on the back. It’s a spreading silver tree.
The Silver Prince’s motif: S.P.
“What is this?” I whisper.
“Like I said, it’s a long story,” Nahteran says, meeting my eyes.
“But this …” I hold up the jacket with the insignia. “This is …”
I don’t want to say the words, really. Don’t want to give voice and weight to the truth taking shape in my head. But Nahteran doesn’t say anything. Just waits in silence. So I have to say it.
“You work for the Silver Prince,” I finish in a whisper.
Nahteran blinks.
I think about pulling out the folded piece of paper in my dress bearing his name—the trade log—but I decide not to. I don’t want to push him toward things he might not want to talk about. My brother is here. He’s alive, but I still haven’t seen him smile and that makes it all feel not quite real.
At length, he pulls another armchair up close and flops down into it. Something about his movements seem so familiar. That quality of being unselfconscious, but still graceful somehow. Mom’s little changeling.
“I want to tell you what happened,” he says, sounding tired. “But I don’t really know where to start.”
I realize that he reminds me of Taya. Taya, you were right.
The thought of her is another knife in my chest. She had always held out hope that her brother was alive, when I had long given up mine for dead. She’s Nate’s biological sister. They were separated as toddlers, back before Nate was taken in by my mom and his name was Terran. Both names broken halves of what I guess must’ve been his first name, his birth name. Nahteran. Brekken told me that in Solarian, it meant soldier.
I bet his and Taya’s Solarian
parents never anticipated him turning out like this.
“Cadius took me and traded my soul to the Silver Prince,” my brother says. His words are timid, like they’re scouts sent venturing out onto dangerous land. “And then I was brought back.”
So many questions live under the surface of those words. I still don’t know how the unbinding happens, how the fragmented and trapped souls bound to their silver prisons can be returned to life and body.
Maybe Nate—Nahteran—can help, I think wildly. But I don’t ask him, not yet. There are so many questions fighting to be asked, and through it all, something inside tells me I need to tread lightly.
“It was him,” he says, his voice very soft and impossible to read. “The Silver Prince brought me back.”
“And you’ve been in Byrn all this time?” I ask, trying to fit the timeline together. “But then how are you here …” I wave my hands around, vaguely indicating this room, this castle, this world.
Then something Mom used to say all the time floats into my head. Use your words, Maddie.
“I mean, I know Solarians can go anywhere,” I rush to amend. “But why are you in Fiordenkill? Why didn’t you tell me or Mom? She’s in jail. Dad and Marla have been taking care of me since that night …”
Nahteran cracks a tired smile, throwing one leg over the arm of the chair, and my heart aches for the familiarity of it. For all these strange clothes and stranger surroundings, he’s the same kid I remember on the couch in our old living room, biting his lip in concentration—just like Mom used to do when she was focusing on something—as he steered a video game go-cart around a sharp bend. But then the levity evaporates from his face, and his gaze goes distant.
“I remember someone breaking into our house that night,” he says, eyes fixed somewhere beyond me.
I suppress a shiver, wondering if that horrible night is as cemented in his head as it is in mine. I hope not. It stained my life for the next ten years, a black shadow reaching its fingers into everything that came after, and I wasn’t even the one screaming.
“But nothing after that,” he goes on. “Not until I woke up, and I was in Oasis. So my soul must have been—trapped until Cadius traded the silver to the Prince. The Silver Prince was the one who told me what happened. He told me everything. I did the rest of my growing up there, I guess.”
There’s no animosity in his voice. There’s nothing at all. The words are almost robotic, or like someone reading a story they remember from long ago, but don’t feel any particular way about. It makes me uncomfortable. I’ve been carrying so much rage at the soul traders, at the Silver Prince, at everything. I want Nahteran to reflect it back to me. But he doesn’t. I can’t tell what he’s feeling at all.
“Why did the Silver Prince bring you back to Fiordenkill?” I ask. More and more of the puzzle pieces are coming into view, but they don’t make sense together. The edges aren’t lining up. “I mean, from what I’ve seen of the soul trade, it’s silver Cadius wants.” I can’t help but shudder, verbalizing it. “It’s magic and power the Silver Prince wants.”
Nahteran nods, and finally a bit of anger shows itself in the edge of his voice, kindles in his eyes. “That’s true, most of the time,” he says. He looks down at his hands. “I guess the Silver Prince saw more value in a ward who could shapeshift and travel across the worlds. I’m here on his behalf now.”
My stomach clenches. “To do what?”
“To trade Byrn jewels for healing magic.” Nate grins, though it doesn’t reach his eyes. “At least, as far as Winterkill knows. So …” He sketches out a map with his right index finger on his left palm, a slight, idle smile curving his mouth. “Cadius thinks I’m Byrnisian. The other nobles think I’m Fiorden, and only the Silver Prince knows I’m Solarian.”
Suddenly, his face changes right in front of me. His features elongate and sharpen into more Fiorden characteristics for a moment, before fading back to normal.
It’s eerie, and I feel myself shiver. I’m glad to see him joking, but I can’t get over the familiarity he seems to have with the Silver Prince. “The Prince tried to kill me. Several times.”
“I know.” Nahteran raises his eyes to meet mine. “I’m glad he failed. And I’m sorry I didn’t tell you everything before. I couldn’t.” He takes a deep breath. “If the Silver Prince found out, it would have been dangerous for all of us. When he tried to take over Havenfall, he didn’t tell me what he was doing until after you sent him back to Oasis with his tail between his legs.”
Nahteran trails off into a harsh, bitter laugh, then goes on. “Information with the Silver Prince is dispensed on a need-to-know basis. And even if he had told me, I couldn’t afford to let on that we’re related. He would have used us against each other.”
My brother’s voice is even, calm, and that makes my feelings surge higher inside me, so tangled together I can’t identify how I feel except bad. Wrong.
I don’t know what I want him to say, but once I explained what the black market log meant, that his soul had traded hands to the Silver Prince like a pretty coin, I thought Nahteran would be angry. Furious. Anyone would. But he doesn’t seem to be. I’m glad the Silver Prince brought Nahteran back—of course I am. But I can’t help wishing he was just a little angrier.
Then I remember something important. “Oh.” The sound escapes my lips unconsciously, as if my thoughts are overflowing my mind, spilling out. There are too many things to ask, too many things to tell. “Nahteran, I met … I met Taya. Your sister, Taya.”
Nahteran goes very still at the sound of her name. Confusion and uncertainty steal their way across his face like shadows. “Taya.”
I nod. “Do you remember her?”
His voice, when it comes, is quiet. “I do.”
I’ve been avoiding thinking about Taya since the horror of her vanishing. It’s too painful to remember everything that might have been, everything I did wrong. Too painful not knowing if she was okay, and worst of all, being utterly helpless to do anything about it, with the Solarian door sealed closed and no way to open it.
But I have to tell Nahteran about Taya. About all of it. Not telling him would be lying—worse than lying. I have to tell him, even if it’s confusing and convoluted. Even if it hurts.
So I do. Everything from the moment we met—when she almost ran me over on the road up to Havenfall—to finding out she was a Solarian, our fight with the Silver Prince, and how she saved Havenfall by threatening to break the Solarian door open, disrupting the balance and letting the inn tumble down, turning the Prince’s plans to rubble. How afterward, she vanished through the same door and how I don’t know if she meant to or not. Everything except for the fact that I had a massive crush on her that hasn’t quite gone away. That would just be too weird, on a lot of levels.
When the story is over, we sit in silence for a while. I don’t want to cry in front of Nahteran, so I call on one of Dad’s oldest lessons and try to focus on the positive. Taya could possibly be just fine in Solaria—that’s her world, after all. And Nahteran is here. I found him. Nahteran is here, and he’s whole. He’s himself. He’s sitting across from me just like old times. Probably more than a little traumatized, but not divided, not cast into an earring or an ashtray or … jacks.
My mouth goes dry and my hand shoots up, grasping at my throat for the necklace I’ve always worn. The silver jack on its silver chain. I unclasp it with unsteady fingers.
“Do you know what this is?” I ask, holding it out to him. It dances on its chain as my hands shake.
Nahteran’s face goes very still and pale as he reaches out for it. As I drop it into his palm, I tear through my memories, trying to remember where I got this necklace. I’ve worn it ever since I could remember, as a memento of my brother. But who gave it to me? When?
Marcus. A memory swims to the surface, so soft and hazy I’m not sure if it’s real. Marcus’s jeep in the parking lot of Sterling Correctional. My uncle twisting to look at me in the back seat, his face racked wi
th grief, tear tracks shining on his cheeks. Holding something small and shiny out to me.
Nahteran looks just as uncertain as me. “The Silver Prince always said …” My brother stops, clears his throat, and goes on. “The Silver Prince told me that he hadn’t been able to find all the silver Cadius attached my soul to. That some pieces were missing.”
“Marcus was looking for soul-silver,” I whisper, feeling like I’m starting to fit this puzzle together. “For years. He pretended to work with the traders to bring the silver objects back to Havenfall. I wonder …”
My voice dries up, and I trail off. I don’t want to finish that sentence, don’t want to think about it. How broken Marcus must have felt if he found just one tiny piece of Nate’s soul. Not enough to bring him back, but nothing he could ever let go of, not ever.
“How do you get it back?” I ask, gesturing at the jack with a still slightly unsteady hand. “The pieces of your soul, I mean …”
Nahteran looks far away. He is very still with the jack in his hand, still as a statue. “I don’t know,” he says. “But I think I’d need another Solarian to help.” He holds the jack necklace back out to me.
“It’s yours,” I say.
He shakes his head. “I can’t break the enchantment right now anyway. You hold on to it for now.”
I blink, confused, but I don’t want to argue with him about this. So I accept the necklace and fasten it around my throat. It feels familiar where it falls against my collarbone. Comforting.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper, feeling suddenly unbearably sad. “Sorry for everything.”
Nahteran shrugs. “It wasn’t your fault.”
I bite my lip. I’ve spent ten years struggling toward understanding just that, but it still feels wrong now. Like I should have done more.
“It hasn’t been all bad,” he continues. “The Silver Prince is a monster, but he took me under his wing, weirdly enough. And being under his wing—that helps me with my own goals. It’s why Cadius lets me stay here, why I have access to anywhere at all. I’m the liaison to the Silver Prince in places where he can’t go himself.”